Comments Posted By dmirishman
Displaying 1 To 3 Of 3 Comments
CAN THE GOP HELP GOVERN WHILE IN THE MINORITY?
While growing up in a Irish-Catholic family my father worked every Democrat caucus, as a volunteer for Democrat presidential candidates, and even served as a delegate to the state convention. When old enough to vote there was not even a thought of registering as a Republican. Thirty years after that first voter registration I cannot believe how I could have been a Democrat. You use Tip O'Neil's party to make the case for Republicans cooperating with the party of Obama and Pelosi, these two institutions are the same in name only. Men like Tip O'Neil have no place in the Democrat party of today. They are either marginalized in semi-opposition (Blue Dogs) or are no longer members of the Democrat party ( my Father). The party you want to cooperate with has not existed for 10 or 15 years.
Comment Posted By dmirishman On 10.10.2009 @ 15:42
This "what is a moderate / what is a true conservative" debate with its accompanying hurt feelings and finger pointing is beginning to resemble a dog chasing it's tail. Now anyone who criticizes a moderate will soon be seen hanging around area 51? I know rhetoric has become heated, but do so many people miss the point? The backlash against moderate conservatives or "RINO" Republicans began as a reaction to specific individuals in the Republican Party who, in order to promote themselves and curry favor with the media, went out of their way to label themselves as moderates as defined by liberal Democrats. The moderate or pragmatic position cannot be defined by one side or another, it has to be arrived at by reasoned objective debate and compromise. When John McCain, for instance, seeks out a camera and claims the moderate label on immigration or climate change he always adopts the language and terms of the opposition. When this happens he provides liberals with license to brand any position more conservative than his own as extreme. This does much to promote the individual and nothing to advance either the party or conservatism. Why should liberal Democrats debate a complex, divisive issue and expose themselves when they can define the middle ground and a herd of RINOS stampedes over the rest of us trying to occupy that ground? I have spent enough time on this blog and others to realize there are a great many people who define themselves as moderate and you feel you will soon need to know some password or secret hand shake in order to participate in a discussion of conservative politics. This controversy is not about those who are willing to engage liberals in debate and make policy based on compromise, it is about those in positions of influence whose motivation for compromise has more to do with self interest or self image (a maverick) than in a vision of politics as "the art of the possible". If the profile does not apply to you, then it is not directed at you. Those to whom it applies know who they are and try to confuse the issue so as to discredit their critics. Once again they put self interest first.
Comment Posted By dmirishman On 6.05.2009 @ 18:23
DEBUNKING MYTHS ABOUT MODERATES: 1) MODERATES HAVE NO PRINCIPLES
Speaking as one of those "thugs" who is trying to close the flap on the republican party tent, I read posts like this one and the accompanying comments and have so much to say in response that it is hard to know where to begin. To put it bluntly, you hear the anger but you are so caught up in labeling yourselves as moderates that you do not hear what is being said. You focus only on those that you describe as paranoids with an unrealistic world view or as ideologues and present them as the dominant view. You are missing the point, the republican party has consistently nominated candidates who believe in pragmatism and compromise and who say that they want a government as conservative as possible.Those candidates have received the support not only of moderates ,but of more conservative voters as well because most people, even "pop culture conservatives", recognize the realities of the electoral process. The problem with many of these candidates is not that they are moderates willing to compromise, but that once elected they could not seem to find any "no go" zone where a stand could be taken. I am not talking just about legislation, but about letting liberal democrats dictate the terms of the debate on every single issue from climate change to illegal immigration. To apply conservative principals to our problems you have to promote them and sell them first. Our form of government is not possible without reasoned, objective, informed debate on the issues where one side either persuades the other or a compromise is reached. The leadership of the democrat party and those who fund it are not interested in objective debate. They declared debate over on climate change and republicans speak only to one another letting skeptical scientists go unsupported and compared to holocaust deniers. Democrats call investigation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac racist and republicans back off and watch the mortgage bubble burst. I could keep giving examples, the point is, other than Senator Specter, I cannot say whether elected republicans lack principle or lack courage. The democrats play dirty, the media is unfair and being a conservative in congress is no doubt difficult, but everyone on the right knows this when they run for office. Robert E. Lee was no doubt a skilled, daring tactician who led an outnumbered, poorly equipped Army of Northern Virginia to victory after victory over the Union Army in the first 30 months of the Civil War. His job was made much easier by Generals McClellan, Pope, Hooker, Burnside and Meade who always seemed to find an excuse why the time was not right to fully deploy their superior force and bring Lee to battle. General Grant on the other hand had a simple strategy, find the enemy, fight the enemy, win or lose chase him down and fight him again. As much as anything else the nation survived because Grant chose to fight. The survival of our nation as we have know it is in doubt. It is not a question of adapting individual rights and freedoms and the idea of limited government to a nation of 300 million people, but one of unlimited government slowly taking away our freedoms while General McCain, General Hagel and the like look to fight another day. The tea party movement and the backlash against this mind set is not about a complicated litmus test on conservatism, but about finding generals who will fight.
Comment Posted By dmirishman On 5.05.2009 @ 22:32
